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THE FUTURE of CONSERVATIVE FOREIGN POLICY November 30, 2018

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THE FUTURE of CONSERVATIVE FOREIGN POLICY November 30, 2018 Texas National Security Review POLICY ROUNDTABLE: THE FUTURE OF CONSERVATIVE FOREIGN POLICY November 30, 2018 Table of Contents 1. “Prompt Essay: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy,” by Colin Dueck 2. “The Struggle for Conservative Foreign Policy,” by Elliott Abrams 3. “Libertarianism, Restraint, and the Bipartisan Future,” by Emma Ashford 4. “The Trump Doctrine: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy,” by John Fonte 5. “Freedom, Defense, and Sovereignty: A Conservative Internationalist Foreign Policy,” by Henry R. Nau 6. “The Conservative Realism of the Trump Administration's Foreign Policy,” by Nadia Schadlow 7. “Six Decades Without a Conservative Foreign Policy,” by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos 8. “A Conservative Foreign Policy: Drawing on the Past, Looking to the Future,” by Dov S. Zakheim Policy Roundtable: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-the-future-of-conservative-foreign-policy/ - article Texas National Security Review 1. The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy By Colin Dueck The Trump era has triggered an intense, yet useful discussion on the political right and center-right about the proper direction of American foreign policy. Conservatives within the United States — like Americans generally — have oscillated between realist and idealist interpretations of world affairs, just as they have between military intervention and non- intervention, always trying to find the right balance. But American conservatives have also made these choices in their own characteristic ways. In particular, a recurring tension has long existed between placing emphasis on national versus international priorities. Conservative nationalists have tended to stress U.S. sovereignty,1 while conservative internationalists have tended to stress the need for U.S. strategic engagement overseas.2 These two emphases are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and at times have been compatible. But the 2016 Trump presidential campaign had the effect of highlighting the differences, rather than the commonalities, and, at least at the level of elite opinion, these differences have yet to subside. There is a wide range of opinion among conservative foreign policy experts over the wisdom of President Donald Trump’s international approach. Nor do these opinions always fall along predictable factional lines. For example, there are GOP foreign policy realists who 1 For related arguments, see John Fonte and John O’Sullivan, “The Return of American Nationalism,” National Review, Nov. 18, 2016, https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/11/donald-trumps-win-american-nationalism- returns/; Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism (New York: Basic Books, 2018); Samuel Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005); Julian Koo and John Yoo, Taming Globalization: International Law, the US Constitution, and the New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); and Jeremy Rabkin, Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). 2 Various definitions can be found in Thomas Knock, To End All Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 55–58; Charlie Laderman, “Conservative Internationalism: An Overview,” Orbis 62, no. 1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2017.11.009; Paul Miller, American Power and Liberal Order (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016); and Henry Nau, Conservative Internationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013). Policy Roundtable: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-the-future-of-conservative-foreign-policy/ - article Texas National Security Review believe Trump’s international direction to be mostly sound, and GOP foreign policy realists who disagree.3 There are neoconservatives who largely support the president’s approach, and neoconservatives who do not.4 There are anti-interventionists who like the president’s basic direction, and anti-interventionists who don’t.5 Moreover, some of these differences go straight to the heart of the matter. Indeed, the entire history of the U.S. conservative intellectual movement, beginning in the 1950s, has in a way been a series of attempted purges, redefinitions, or excommunications of one view or another that were considered as being outside the permissible bounds.6 As it turns out, however, the great majority of conservative GOP voters say they support the Trump administration’s foreign policy approach.7 This raises an interesting question: Can the intellectuals excommunicate the voters? Probably not. What then is the role of conservative intellectuals in a populist era? One answer is to try and provide foreign policy recommendations and principles, and foster a deeper understanding of the issues, whether or not it is politically popular. Another is to listen to the concerns of conservative voters, in the realization the public may understand something that the intellectuals do not. It may even be possible to do both of these things at the same time. But regardless of which path is pursued, conservative intellectuals will first need to acknowledge that, as an empirical historical reality, there is more than one specific way of 3 Randall Schweller, “Three Cheers for Trump’s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 5 (September/October 2018), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-08-13/three-cheers-trumps-foreign-policy; Dov Zakheim, “Trump’s Perilous Path,” National Interest, June 18, 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/trumps-perilous-path-26325. 4 Elliott Abrams, “Trump the Traditionalist,” Foreign Affairs 96, no. 4 (July/August 2017), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-06-13/trump-traditionalist; Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back (New York: Knopf, 2018). 5 Patrick Buchanan, “Trump Calls Off Cold War II,” American Conservative, July 17, 2018, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/trump-calls-off-cold-war-ii/; Curt Mills, “A Year On, Foreign Policy Restrainers Assess the Trump Administration,” National Interest, Nov. 7, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/year-foreign-policy-restrainers-assess-the-trump-23088. 6 George Hawley, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017), chap. 2. 7 Monthly Harvard-Harris Poll, The Harris Poll, October 2018, https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/10/HHP_Oct2018_Topline_Memo_RegisteredVoters.pdf. Policy Roundtable: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-the-future-of-conservative-foreign-policy/ - article Texas National Security Review defining conservative foreign policy — and that the debate between these various options cannot be constructively advanced without first accepting the possibility of honest disagreement between intelligent people. It is in this spirit that the Texas National Security Review convenes this particular roundtable, drawing from a wide range of notable foreign policy voices on this topic. Our contributors each represent their own distinct point of view, offering analysis, predictions, and/or recommendations of their own. The purpose of this opening essay is not to offer a thunderous statement about what conservative foreign policy should or will be. Rather, it is simply to prompt and provoke broader discussion and debate, by pointing out certain historical patterns, current tendencies, and possible future directions. Past Examples Any judgment on the future of conservative foreign policy necessarily rests upon a judgment regarding both its past and its present. Conservatism in America is not identical with the Republican Party, but over a period of many years it has become more closely associated with it. The GOP has been America’s more rightward political party going back at least to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal era, if not earlier, and social or cultural traditionalism has since been layered on as an added point of difference with Democrats.8 To discuss conservative foreign policy over the past century is, therefore, to discuss Republican foreign policy.9 And here, conservatives have more than one historical model upon which to draw. These models tend to focus on differing presidencies, but are not limited to them. Or, to put it another way, when reviewing the history of conservative foreign policy one must ask: What past U.S. foreign policy leaders are today’s conservatives supposed to emulate? Ronald Reagan? Either Bush presidency? Richard Nixon? Dwight 8 Alan Abramowitz, The Great Alignment (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018); David Leege et al., The Politics of Cultural Differences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 27–28, 254–58; Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, “The Transformation of the Republican and Democratic Party Coalitions in the US,” Perspectives on Politics 6, no. 3 (September 2008): 433–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592708081218; and James Sundquist, Dynamics of the Party System (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1983), chaps. 8–12, 16–17. 9 Colin Dueck, Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy since World War II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). Policy Roundtable: The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-the-future-of-conservative-foreign-policy/ - article Texas National Security Review Eisenhower? Or should future conservatives look to even earlier examples
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